Keynote Presentation

Chris Skinner is known to be an exceptional speaker which is why he is regularly requested to keynote at many of the financial market’s most prestigious events. Through these industry events he has presented alongside many other leading world figures including Gary Hamel, Michael Porter, Richard Branson, Lou Gerstner, Meg Whitman and Bill Gates. He also regularly opens as keynote at many private industry events.

His keynote addresses focus upon the key current trends and future scenarios for all areas of financial services across retail, commercial and investment banking, as well as wider areas of the future of society and the economy.

Chris Skinner is presenting worldwide at some of the largest conferences including Money 2020, BAI Retail Delivery, SIBOS, Dreamforce and more, typically visiting over 40 countries a year as a keynote speaker. Recently, he has travelled from Indonesia to India, Russia to America, Singapore to Brazil presenting his messages about the future of banking, the internet and business. His keynote presentations range from visions of the future to strategies for banks to compete using technology change.

What are Chris Skinner’s key lessons?

Back in 2000 Chris made a video for my company. You can see the video here: https://vimeo.com/41503579. It shows a vision of a wireless mobile world twelve years before that world became a reality and it shows that he’s a futuristic kind of guy.

Chris’s focus is on the future because someone once gave him feedback on a presentation with the comment: tell me something I don’t know. Ever since he’s been totally focused on what’s next rather than what happened. He’s not a futurist however. He doesn’t like the term. Rather, Chris is a commercial strategist rather than as a futurist. This is because a commercial strategist is looking at the window of the future for opportunity to get business and growth, rather than just day dreaming what tomorrow will look like.

Most people tell us that Chris is innovative whilst others call him a “professional troublemaker”. Both descriptions are accurate. In fact, he calls himself a “corporate joker”, with the aim to challenge, provoke and get a reaction. If you react, you can act.

According to LinkedIn endorsements, people say that he is a leader in strategy, financial services, banking, business development, payments, marketing, sales, risk management and business transformation. All are appropriate.

In summary, Chris Skinner is a:

Strategist

Communicator

Entrepreneur

Innovator

Provocateur

We not only recommend Chris as a speaker, but many of our colleagues, partners and clients do too:

“Just a quick note to say thanks again for a truly terrific presentation at our SAP Banking Summit event here in The Hague. The event was overall a great success and your participation was really one of the highlights of the entire three days.”

Don Trotta, Global Head of Financial Services Industry Solutions, SAP

“Just a quick note to thank you for your contribution in the last 2 days. I know this isyour ‘day job’ as you call it, but nevertheless, it’s not easy to moderate a 90 minute discussion on Risk and follow it up with one on Regulation. As for your presentation…well…that was a REAL eye-opener. I loved the way you referred to the guy who was idiotic enough to have the same passwords for his accounts. I glanced around the room at that point and saw some quite startled faces. Top presentation.”

Bradley Lonnen, Vice President, Market Management, Deutsche Bank AG

“What a great speech! Thank you so much for coming to our business lunch yesterday and delivering such an excellent oration. I have heard nothing but praise from the Liverymen, Freemen and their guests whoe were there.”

Jonathan Soar, Master of the Worshipful Company of Information Technologists

“Can I just start by SINGING my praises for Mr. Skinner. What a lovely, down-to-earth, intelligent (insert ALL adjectives that apply here) person. When I say it was a pleasure and an honor to meet such a great guy, I mean every word. He was the highlight of the Summit.”

Renaid Abdallah, Organiser, FT Summit Dubai

“On behalf of all of us at the ACT thank you very much for being our keynote lunchtime speaker. As discussed I thought you successfully provoked the audience into thinking carefully about the state of their banking relationships.”

Colin Tyler, Chief Executive, the Association of Corporate Treasurers

“I just wanted to thank you again for coming over and doing the Futurist session for ISITC. It was very well received. In fact, in my post-event Marketing Committee meeting on Tuesday morning, it was unanimously agreed that your session was one of the highlights of the event.”

“Thank you very much once again for your participation yesterday. Several people commented to me that your moderation style really helped bring the best out of the panelists and from what I saw I’d be inclined to agree with them. I think the moderation role is underrated by some people – it can be the difference between a great session and an average one. I will certainly add you to our list of preferred moderators here.”

Dr Neema Parvini, Senior Conference Producer, Incisive Media (Waters)

“The audience couldn’t stop raving about your presentation. You know you could be live at the O2 and get a full house!”

Bikash Mathur, Partner

“Chris is actually a sage. Not only is he a wise, perceptive and funny, he is also excellent at identifying and explaining the key drivers of change in the Financial Services industry. His work and that of the forward looking Financial Services Club around the impact of Information Technology, Web 2.0 and client expectations of what Financial Services should be delivering to its clients, is superb. Chris is erudite and witty as a Chairman and informative and challenging as a speaker. You can see why he is in demand around the world.”

“Chris has always impressed me with his forward-looking perspectives on the global catalysts for change in the highly-commoditized retail banking industry. Chris can always be counted on to provide a controversial, yet highly-relevant dialogue on potential sources of future disruption.”

Steven D. Audino, Executive Director, USAA

“Chris is a familiar face and voice in the UK and European banking market and being a prolific blogger on the banking and finance markets needs little introduction. His views are always of interest and are often stated to provoke broader debate. He is an excellent, intelligent speaker and has been used by my company as a facilitator to good and useful effect.”

Roy McPherson, Banking Consultant, Gresham Computing

“Chris spoke at a recent Cambridge100 Club Dinner about the next big developments in technology and what these will mean to business. This was a remarkable talk – insightful, compelling and informative. Chris is a visionary and futurologist with a real command of the factors which shape our future.”

Dermot Hill, Chairman, Cambridge 100 Club

“Chris did a fantastic visionary presentation for me in our ‘Compliance as a Competitive Weapon’ seminar. He thinks outside the box and consistently delivers thought provoking arguments.”

Tony Ferguson, Director, UniRisX

“Thanks ever so much for your excellent kick-off of this year’s Management Conference. The feedback for the attendees was uniformly very positive. Your remarks exceeded our goal of ‘telling them something they didn’t know’. Come back and see us again!”

John P. Biestman, Director, Federal Home Loan Bank of Seattle

Thanks again for Chris Skinner’s “keynote address at our conference. I’m just reviewing the evaluations and he was certainly a hit. Comments included: ‘Chris Skinner – WOW’; ‘Chris Skinner – you saved the best to the last’; ‘Chris was an excellent speaker and very thought provoking’; ‘Chris’ presentation was exceptional’.”

Anne Marie MacNeil, Deposit Specialist, SaskCentral

Illustrative keynote presentation titles include:

The future of money, trade and finance

Banking, money, finance, insurance are all terms that are familiar, but these are terms of the last century. They no longer apply in the 21st century. Terms being used by millennials are around ideas, value, exchange, sharing. As the digital age reshapes the whole structure of commerce and trade, what will the outcome look like? How will society and technology rethink money and finance? Will banks and traditional financial firms be relevant in this new world? Chris Skinner will provide a view of the next decade of change and how it will reshape the structure of financial services globally.

Are Bankers Good or Bad for Society?

In previous ages bankers have sometimes pecked lower in the order of society than lepers. Jesus declared their usurous ways immoral. Amazingly, from this disadvantaged position in society, bankers flourished over the past two centuries before imploding spectacularly both financially and socially in 2008. Bankers now don’t even trust each other. This illuminating review of the history and future of banking and society explores why these former outcasts from high society are natural problem children and ponders whether they have a social future and, if so, what will it look like?

Why the best authentication is you

As usernames and passwords are so regularly compromised, we are rapidly moving to a new form of digital identity authentication. Digital signatures and sign-ons, enabled by mobile and biometrics, are becoming standard, but where does this take us in the longer term? What will the long-term future of trade and commerce look like, and how will the digital age change us? Chris Skinner will provide a view of the next decade of change from using your DNA for secure access to exchanging an idea as payment, and reviews how all of this will reshape the structure of financial services globally.

The Next Major Global Financial Crisis Will Be in 2045

Regulators have a problem. The problem is that they are always following, never leading. Right now, they are shaping a new ﬁnancial market that should be robust for decades to come. Yet based upon historical extrapolation, the likelihood is that the next global ﬁnancial crisis will occur around 2045, thirty-three years from now. What is going to happen? How? Why is this the likely outcome and where will the issues occur? Chris Skinner, a leading commentator on global ﬁnancial markets, will explain.

Digital banking turns traditional banking on its head

Banks were built in the 20th century to handle the physical distribution of paper through a localised branch network; now they are being rebuilt as digital structures for the digital distribution of data through the global internet. What does this mean for the institutions, staff and organisational structure? More importantly, what does it mean for the corporate customers and consumers? And, most important, what does it mean for competition, innovation and regulation? These areas are only just being understood and therefore the launch of a market leading commentator’s book on the developments is perfect timing. Digital Bank by Chris Skinner, charts the developments of digital banking, with clear case studies and recommendations of what to do and what not to do. Based upon a career of delivering technology to banks, Mr. Skinner will provide a near-term vision of where digital banking will take us over the next decade. It’s going to be challenging, but a great ride, so come along and find out the future of your bank career at the launch of Digital Bank: Strategies to Launch or Become a Digital Bank.

Five things you need to know before you start a Digital Bank

Too many banks are investing in the wrong things. They have made assumptions about what customers want, where technology is going, how banking works and how all these things come together as a customer proposition. But many of these assumptions are wrong. As a result many banks will start their Digital Bank operations again from scratch in a few years, writing off millions in investments in the wrong things. This presentation will tell you the five things you need to know before you start a Digital Bank. If you know these five things, you’ll get it right. Alternatively, go ahead and waste your dollars.

“Capitalism is dead, long live capitalism”

In 2008, capitalism died. Or at least the model of capitalism promoted by the Anglo-Saxon West. What has replaced it? Or rather, what will? The answer can be seen from the developments of social media and NGOs (non-government organisations) who are beomcing heavyweight pressure groups for change. This group is best represented by the Occupy movement, who have already made historic and fundamental changes to the thinking of policymakers. In other words, capitalism has become social. What does that mean for your business?

“Our technocharged world is still in the dark ages”

You think that the world is changing and changing fast. It’s not. The world has progressed at the level of a snail so far, and the next decade will prove to be far more interesting. How will the world look in a decade? Who know … but there are ways to find out. This presentation will show you how.

“Why is everyone so hung up on payments when no-one pays for anything ten years from now?”

We grew up thinking that money was important because capitalism ruled. We have all been proven wrong as money becomes meaningless and capitalism is broken. As the world reconstructs itself to be fit for the 2020s, everything is changing and changing fast. The biggest change is that payments have become perfunctory. No-one ever wakes up thinking ‘today I’ll make a payment, yay!’, but they do pay for things. That is also going to change, as all of the payments processing disappears into the ether. What is 2023 going to look like? How will banking have changed? What will people pay for and how? These are the big ticket questions that Chris Skinner will focus upon … and answer.

The Greatest Opportunities to Grow New Banking Business (and the Greatest Threats)

Over the next five years, there are significant changes that will take place in the way in which people bank. This is not just technology change, but fundamental change in the way your customers and the corporations who deal with them, transact and exchange commerce. These changes, many of which you will have observed already such as social lending, will create a new financial landscape where some banks will be leaders whilst others will be demoted to just being the dumb pipes that sit behind 21st century commerce. Do you want to be a leader or a dumb pipe? If the former, then you should attend this workshop by renowned strategist and blogger Chris Skinner. Chris will use the key forces of change – Political, Economic, Social and Technological – to demonstrate how the bank of the future might look and will give a number of key, actionable items for all attendees to take away and apply to their banks tomorrow.

Branchless Banking and a Cashless Society: fact or fiction?

For years, banks and industry pundits have bet that cash and bank branches will disappear, yet they are still as strong as ever. Sure, cash and branches are reducing in number, but cash in circulation is still increasing as are the number of bank branches in some countries. So is a branchless, cashless future a reality or a myth?

The similarities between banks and landmines

Banks are like landmines that explode in economic terms, in a similar way in which landmines explode and blow away people in the real world. Just as landmines blow the legs away from humans, banks blow the legs off economies. It’s obviously the case that this is true today, what with the Lehmans collapse with Credit Default Swaps creating the first financial crisis; and now sovereign debt in the Eurozone is developing the second. How can such economic landmines exist in a world where we should have cleared them by now, and how can we avoid them in the future?

Why banking will disappear but banks will not … well, not all of them

Over the next decade, a radical shift will take place in the role and function of banking. It’s already started and it’s all about BIG DATA. But it’s more than that. It’s to do with the value shift in society from seeing money to seeing virtual money; from seeing technology to seeing social technology; and from seeing government to seeing self-governance. These shifts have been seeded in smartphones, social networks and the global linkage of every person on the planet to wireless media, and this shift will accelerate over the next decade. What this means for banks is that they will become hybrid keepers of money and data, and anything else their customers believe to be of value. They might even be keepers of cloud secure Facebook photo albums … why not? To see the impact of the key political, economic, social and technological forces of the next decade, Chris Skinner will bring together these themes and outline the vision for the bank of 2021.

Money is meaningless

Since PayPal began, we have seen money being digitised. Now mobile is booming, the whole mechanism of money and customer interaction is being revolutionised. Add to this Facebook credits and other virtual currencies, and you soon realise it’s not about money but it’s about value. Value management in all its forms – money, knowledge, ideas, time, goods, services, trade – is the critical focus for tomorrow’s institutions. And, as value becomes exchanged in all forms of virtual and physical form, money becomes meaningless. What does it mean for you?

The Bank of 2020

Banks need to focus upon two numbers with huge implications for modern banking: one and 2020, as the bank of 2020will also be the Bank of One. One person has always had the power to change the world – but in a highly social, highly networked world, that one person no longer needs to be a President or a Nobel Laureate. By way of example, Molly Katchpole was just a 22-year old college graduate working two jobs to make ends meet when Bank of America announced that they would introduce a $5 monthly fee on debit cards. She started an online protest that resulted in hundreds of thousands of people joining her within days. Result: the bank had to perform a policy U-turn. Molly Katchpole is an example of one person taking a stand through social media, and changing the policy at one of America’s largest banks. There are many others. In this presentation, Chris Skinner talks about how social media is changing banking and how the bank of 2020 will look as a result.